Sam Mitchell’s staying + Colangelo’s biggest mistake (for the Suns)

It looks like the folks at FireSamMitchell.com did all that work for nothing. Bryan Colangelo revealed yesterday that Sam Mitchell isn’t going anywhere. This time he didn’t add any suffix phrases such as “at this point” or “for now”, it was pure and simple English:

“Let me say this: We have no intention of making a coaching change, period.”

OK, so another year of Smitch isn’t all that bad, is it? Maybe he’ll get better at his preparatory skills and X’s and O’s knowledge enough so that we won’t be calling for his head after every stagnant offensive set. Just because Mitchell’s staying for another year doesn’t mean his assistants have to. The Raptors are a poor defensive team (a lot has to do with the roster) and have an offense that struggles with less than 4 minutes to go. Perhaps Colangelo can supplement the coaching staff with a knowledgeable basketball professor that can be the piston that drives Mitchell’s engine. It’s the best we can hope for.

Mitchell assesses that the reason they lost to the Magic was talent rather than tactics. It’s hard to apply that analysis to the whole series but in games 4 and 5 our offense down the stretch did choke and the players get the majority of the blame there. Games 1 and 2 were lost because of Mitchell’s insane changes to the starting lineup.

Bill Simmons is reviewing the end of the Phoenix Suns era that ended up producing nothing except for false hope for a championship for their fans. He tries to sum up all the mistakes the Suns management made in their quest for a championship and Bryan Colangelo is mentioned in Mistake #1:

As astounding as this sounds, Bryan Colangelo’s decision to sign Richardson instead of drafting Deng or Iguodala — which was dumb at the time, by the way — ended up costing them a whopping FOUR FIRST-ROUND PICKS! Would you rather have Richardson, or would you rather have the No. 7 pick in 2004, the No. 21 pick in 2005, and your first-rounders in 2008 and 2010? Hold on, this gets better. Your 2005 NBA Executive of the Year? That’s right, Mr. Bryan Colangelo! I love the NBA.)

Hindsight is 20/20 but it’s worth a mention.

Kevin Durant won the Rookie of the Year award with the first-place votes going 90-30 in the favor of Durant. Al Horford can make a good case for getting shafted, Horford averaged a double-double with 13/11/4 in 31 minutes while Durant averaged 21/4/2 in 34 minutes. Horford was a huge part of Atlanta’s playoff push and has shown that he’ll be a legitimate force in the low-block for years to come. I’d have given it to Horford. Jamario Moon finished fourth.

Watching Detroit’s smackdown on Philly you realize that Pistons have woken up. They were dicking around for the first few games of the series and expected Philly to be content on making it this far but once push came to shove they rose to the occasion. They really do have a switch.